EP. 1.5 - Shooting Star - (Open)

[Deleted]

Week 2 Day 6 (About 2-3pm)[Nevada]/Day 7 (4-5 AM)[Malaysia/Indonesia]

In a matter of moments, Nova's expectation of having escaped were shredded as the tracking missile slid into the port exhaust and exploded. Thankfully, there would be no kill added to a Decepticon's kill count, as the space bridge the Lesser Moon had created snapped shut. Pursuit would be impossible, as she'd made sure that their own bridge generator was more or less scrapped beyond recovery. Of course, she had more pressing concerns well beyond whether she could be followed or not.

Lights and displays flickered, trying to cope with the fluctuating amounts of power coursing through the now drifting ship. Working at speed, Nova cut power to the engines, rerouting power to critical systems. At the same time, she activated an distress beacon.

::Mayday. Mayday. This is the Lesser Moon requesting assistance from any Autobot forces. Galactic coordinates are...:: As she rattled off the coordinates, she couldn't help feeling something that could be called deja' vu, which given how much she'd traveled, wasn't too far off. ::Distress beacon activated at 17:83:14 Galactic Standard Time::

As the ship slowly turned over in it's lazy orbit over the blue orb, a probe shoot out, aiming away from the plane of the elliptical, before stopping and blaring it's message.

[Deleted]

Autobot Base

Arcee stood in front of one of the many consoles, plugging away at the controls. Currently, mid afternoon, the two-wheeler was compiling her daily report from her early morning patrol. Given the current tense situation with MECH, the patrol had proven remarkably uneventful and unforthcoming with new information.

Sorting through her files of previous reports, Arcee tediously probed through them to cross-reference data to see if she had missing anything important beforehand. The blue femme groaned softly to herself, rubbing aching optics, as she skimmed through endless data.

Tapping the console screen to switch to the next chronological database, the base sensors blared in the main room as a comm. channel automatically popped open and issued the incoming distress call:

::Mayday. Mayday. This is the Lesser Moon requesting assistance from any Autobot forces. Galactic coordinates are...::

Arcee cursed softly beneath her breath, closing out the database windows and pulling up navigational charts.

::Distress beacon activated at 17:83:14 Galactic Standard Time::

Arcee watched as the coordinates for the distressed caller illuminated the screen. She swiftly opened a private commline to her Prime:

“Arcee to Optimus. We’ve got a possible Autobot ship hailing a distress call for assistance. How would you like to proceed?”

[Optimus Prime]

Recharge or not, the blaring alarm didn't just play in the main room, but was also wired to go off in Optimus' own quarters just in case he was in recharge. It is because of this, by the time Arcee had commed him, he was already alerted that something was going wrong, and as such was making his way down the long halls to the Control Room.

Long strides carried him forward with a reasonably high pace that was not quite a jog, falling just shy of such a thing. He was not going to run, as due to what Arcee had reported there was very little he could actually accomplish there that he could not relay from his current location. Beside this fact, he was still on a direct course to where the main controls were.

::Access the nature of their distress call::

It was a simple command, one that would paint a broader picture for them as a whole. If they were under attack, than that would enact one coarse of reactions, if the ship was damaged and they were going down, it would enact a separate one. But whatever path was chosen, and whatever the distress was, there was always that ominous snarl in the background, paranoid hissings of warnings that all of this could just be a trap to play off of emotions. But truly...?

There really was not much that they could do.

They could try, but they had no ships to defend a shuttle on its way to earth from Decepticon attack, and talking someone through repairs was not a very easy thing to do. Ground Bridging them out from danger was a recipe for disaster. It would be a huge difficulty to even open and maintain the ground bridge on a moving target, let alone take the risk of this being a trap and them opening their base up to Decepticon forces.

He had to take this one step at a time, and actually find out what the nature of the distress was, and if verifying ID codes was even allotted in the timetable, or if they were dealing with fractions of seconds to ACT.

[Deleted]

For several kliks, Nova had given serious thought to abandoning the Lesser Moon, trailing after it in her alt form, salvage what she could, and hope for possible rescue. All that was wiped away as she saw the terminal line between day and night as it stood on the planet below. Just beyond the darkness, she saw lights.

The slagging planet not only had life, but advanced life. Many of her kind would have easily mistaken the lights for wildfires or lava flows, but she'd been in orbit of so many planets harboring races of 'advanced technology' that she could easily tell the difference between natural and artificial light. A thousand and one thoughts coursed through her processors. Maybe this was a world held by a member of the Galactic Council, and thus request assistance to rebuild the ship. Mayhaps this was a long lost colony world of Cybertron, unspoiled by the war. What if this was a 'Con rulled planet.... So many ideas sparked themselves in her mind before she wiped them away. There was only one thing she could think about right now....and that was 'landing'....hopefully away from a population center.

Without both engines in working condition, the Lesser Moon had next to zero maneuverability, and the ship was starting to drag on the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Contrary to popular belief, a planet's atmosphere does not form a perfect sphere enveloping it's host world. Instead, there are subtle worls and eddies that form on the edges, not unlike the kind seen along he surface of a gently floating river or stream.

It was these eddie currents that the floundering ship was rubbing on, causing it's velocity to drop ever so slightly.

"Frag it up your exhaust port, Unicron. Primus didn't send me here for nothing."

Utilizing the maneuvering thrusters, Nova forced the ship 'down', digging into the atmosphere. The hull plating started to heat up due to the rapidly increasing friction.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Autobot Base

On the main screen, data about the ship streamed from the beacon. This only occurred when proper identifiers were digitally exchanged (which had occurred once the base 'picked up' the distress signal). It showed a detailed model of the ship, it's port engine flashing red.

[Deleted]

::Access the nature of their distress call::



"Copy that, Prime," said Arcee, getting down to business. Accessing the comm. channel once more, the two-wheeler iniated open communication to the hailing ship.

::Autobot base to Lesser Moon, do you copy.:: She called, clearly and quite alert, all fatigue evaporating. ::We've received your distress beacon, what is your situation.::

Seconds after Arcee transmitted, the computer network updated with a flood of data concerning the ship's identity... and functional status. She narrowed her optics as a scematic readout of the ship popped up with flashing angry red highlights illustrating malfunction engines.

::Prime, we've receive a data burst confirming the ship's identity. It's Autobot. However, I've yet to hear back from the pilot directly and there's something else...the ship's engines are offline."

[Optimus Prime]

It did not take Optimus long to get to the Control room, despite the fact he had not ran or even jogged in any way along his path. Having a determined stride, and longer limbs was plenty to facilitate his progress and permit him to arrive just as Arcee was finishing her comm to him. While he entered his expression betrayed some urgency and stern overtones behind the subdued emotional wall, showing just how this situation did not bode well for him.

Each footfall that had been at a pressing pace before, slowed as he strode up behind Arcee in order to be able to view the computer screens for himself. The data relayed truly wasn't good, and though he knew it was impossible given Arcee's capabilities, he was almost hoping she had been mistaken. He had hoped her report had been flawed and the portion that had gone inoperational hadn't been the ship's engines.

Not so much luck.

Not waiting to be polite, or speaking to urge Arcee out of his path, ((since time was not particularly on anyone's side)) Optimus instead opted to reach over the small femme to the communications relay. His hand typed in a few commands into the keyboard swiftly, zooming into the engine section that had been flashing red to get a more accurate diagnostic. While this pulled up, he continued to type, a second window illuminating on the side with the ships current direction and decent to calculate where exactly it may crash on current downfall.

::This is Optimus Prime of the Omega Outpost, you are descending into a populated planet. Modify trajectory eight degrees right::

There was more reason to this request than simply wishing to save some human lives, the fact of the matter was if they crashed in the city there would be more infrastructures that could puncture fuel lines and raise the likelihood of an explosion. If he could redirect them somewhere far more flat and uninhabited, maybe coated in dirt, than it'd just be better off for everyone involved.

::Do you have means of evacuation for current occupants?::

Optimus had no idea how many individuals were on this ship, or if it was a lone shuttle. It looked to be reasonably sized, but right now his focus was on more pressing issues. Namely the fact he could do very little and trying to find a loophole that would allow him to do more. Judging from what little he knew of ship engines, and the information told to him now, it would take a few days to possibly repair what was wrong with this thing, and a few days simply was not on their time table. A few minutes could be pushing luck even.

[Deleted]

As the thermosphere started to slowly raise the dynamic temperature of the Lesser Moon's hull, Nova noticed a furiously blinking signal on the HUD. Some one, at some point not too long ago, tried to contact her. Pulling up the communique, she replayed the message. Before she had a chance to activate the comms channel to reply, an incoming emergency override broke through.

The voice that came through certainly carried an air of surety about it, though she had her doubts. The fact they were suggesting she alter her trajectory made it clear they were monitoring her, though how exactly, she wasn't quite sure, seeing as how her ship was stealthed quite well. Regardless, she had to reply.

::Omega Outpost. Nova Storm, pilot of the Lesser Moon. I acknowledge the fact I'm descending toward an inhabited planet, largely due to the array of lights spread beyond the planetary terminator. Be advised, if I alter trajectory starboard by the suggested, and I end up injuring anyone beyond myself, I will scour the galaxy for you and terminate your spark, or what ever you decide to call it. And if you're a Decepticon playing at being the Prime, I'll send you to the recycling heap, no questions asked.::

If there was a human capable of understanding Neocybrex, they could have sworn the femme that spoke had a slight British accent. Cybertronian audios would have said it was of someone from the Crystal City.

::As for means of evac, alt frame allows for exaplanetary capabilities. Current transport's functionality, or rather current lack there of, overrides abandonment of said vessel::

[Deleted]

Arcee didn’t think twice as her Prime reach over her head for the console controls. One he was her commanding officer; and two she had learned to tolerate most bots invading her personal space unknowingly through the cycles, simply because she was on the smaller side.

She was on edge. Arcee might have fidgeted back and forth on her pedes anxious for action, if not for her years of experience. Ever the soldier, she listen intently to her Prime’s attempts at communicating and the eventual reply back from The Lesser Moon’s pilot.

::...Be advised, if I alter trajectory starboard by the suggested, and I end up injuring anyone beyond myself, I will scour the galaxy for you and terminate your spark, or what ever you decide to call it. And if you're a Decepticon playing at being the Prime, I'll send you to the recycling heap, no questions asked.::

Arcee couldn’t help but smirk, despite the seriousness of the situation, at the pilot’s statement and spoke out loud more to herself, “I like her, already.”

The Lesser Moon’s pilot final comment came over the commline. The two-wheeler frowned in concentration. The ship crashing, even with the alter path, would still result in a spectacular display that would likely draw unwanted attention. Arcee could pilot a ship if she had too, but she was no aerial specialist and even the Autobot’s own air-capable force was greatly lacking.
Humming to herself in thought, Arcee latched onto the memory of one of Agent Fowler’s rambling stories about shuttles riding on the back of giant jet carriers.

“Prime, perhaps, Agent Fowler might have access to air craft capable and crazy-aft human pilots skilled enough to meet The Lesser Moon in the atmosphere and help ease it closer to the earth’s surface.” Arcee suggested hesitately, not sure if such a manuveur was even possible.

[Optimus Prime]

Well, if they could get Nova Storm down from the crashing shuttle unharmed, at least she would have a possible companion in Arcee.

Optimus' helm turned down to peer at the small femme, a brow quirking slightly as his only real acknowledgment to the exchange before peering back at the monitor. Optimus himself was not particularly bothered by the threats. It was odd, he hasn't really had anyone question him so... aggressively... before. However he didn't blame her for being cautious when Decepticons could try to use such a ploy, but at the same time it could be seen as a bit insulting.

Sentinel would not have coped with such things well at all. He would be the type to just disconnect the call right then and there, and leave this poor soul on their own. The pure insult he seemed to take with such 'slights' against him was alarming at times, but thankfully this was not Sentinel, and despite influences from the Matrix from said Prime's imprint upon it? Optimus only really paused a moment in response to the brash disrespect. He disregarded it entirely and moved on.

"I do not believe such things are within this planets technological capabilities. Mid-air refueling is still precarious for them."

The Prime replied to Arcee's thought carefully, still milling over his own considerations. As valuable as shuttles can be when salvaged, and as beneficial as they were, the fact of the matter was that the likelihood of saving an engineless shuttle upon decent to Earth was rather slim. It was effectively like trying to catch a falling rock on the wing of hope and ideals.

In addition to the trickiness of the entire ordeal, there was the fact even attempting such a maneuver with human technology meant that it would be risking lives. One wrong move, one misstep, and it would cost a life, all for the hope of a transport they didn't really need. No shuttle was going to go up against the Nemesis, not even battle ready aircraft could do that. They had no means of gaining their own warship, and the only boon a shuttle like that could have would be transportation.

Transportation which was rendered null and void by the Ground Bridge.

There was also the need to store a shuttle, which would take up a lot of space. As such, unless they could figure out a way to restart the engines, or save the transport without human intervention, than as far as Optimus was concerned it could crash so long as all occupants got out. Speaking of occupants...

"Nova Storm, are you the only passenger on board?"

It was an important question. One which further would cement future decisions. If there was just one flyer on board? Than this was an easy conclusion. Guide the transport to crash in a desolate area, and have the Autobot fly off. Easy easy nobody injured, and some Cybertronian metals and materials would then be able to be salvaged from the wreckage.

[Deleted]

Nova's warning was more in response to 'deceptive activities undertaken by third party combatants' then Decepticon trickery. She had run into numerous occasions of the former but only a few of the latter, seeing as how most 'Cons lacked the patience for such deception. Either way, she had had enough of such flagrant attempts to lure unsuspecting Neutrals and Autobots to their room.

It was hardly odd to be asked whether she was alone or not, which tended to work to her advantage, as her 'reception committee' would be overconfident about a lone Bot. ::Omega. Current occupancy, including myself, currently stands at one. If you count holoavas, then it stands at two.::

Part of the communication was cut off as ionic plasma washed over the superheated hull, cutting a blazing path above South Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent.

[Optimus Prime]

Optimus did not understand this Femme. Her shuttle was crashing, time was ticking away, and they would soon find their vessel colliding with the earth into a fireball of destruction, and yet they found the time to be sarcastic or try to insert humor. It may only take tiny seconds to accomplish, and it may be a coping mechanism to any stress they may or may not be experiencing, but it really didn’t bode to well to the Prime who was trying to effectively assist in any way he could.

He wanted to state an 'I do not' in reply. That he did not consider holoforms as viable second passengers, but that would be acknowledging the words in any format. It is because of this he ignored it. He blankly stepped right over the commentary and did not even acknowledge it as a thing, instead focusing in the fact that yes... there was only herself, and yes... she was a flyer.

This took some strain off of his shoulders, removing the weight and burden of having to try to figure out something dangerous on the fly to try to save a grounder. He was not certain he knew exactly WHAT he would do if there were other passengers who could not fly, but worrying about that at this time, was about as effective as daydreaming, since it did not pertain to the here or now.

"I am sorry to inform we have no means to assist in rescuing your shuttle from an undesirable impact upon the planet, but can assist with salvage and offer sanctuary at Omega Outpost upon confirmation of Autobot ID codes in person."

It was not much to offer, but it was all they really could do. Optimus watched the readouts on the screen grimly, as the shuttle gradually made its way down towards the earth's surface.

[Deleted]

Surprise. Surprise. Sur-fragging-prise. Of course they couldn't assist. She mentally rolled her optics, seeing as how she had to focus on keeping the ship from flipping during the decent. ::Understood:: She worked to keep a bored tone from injecting itself in to her reply.

Projected course plotting seemed to put her on one of the largest islands along a chain that seemed to stretch out from the mainland. Whether this remained true remained to be seen.

The Decent went rather 'smoothly' (all things considered). The actual Landing....Not so much.

Taking the top of the mountain off kinda sucked, but it was the force of the impact causing the shuttle to lazily pirouette in the air before slamming into the jungle, cutting a quarter-mile path before finally coming to a rest, canted at a hard angle, that just blew slag.

Nova rebooted, her systems running a hard check. There was a rapid sparking, the smell of ozone filling the cabin. The check came back that there was an issue with her optic, as it was not responding. Fearing that she had somehow lost it, she reached up and touched her face. Thank Primus, it was still attached. Must have been knocked offline during the landing. "Zari, Little help?" As she started to manually undock from the pilot chair, a humanoid figure quickly appeared and started to work at a couple of the harder to reach linkages.

[Deleted]

Frag it.

Arcee pounded on the console controls harder than she intended. Too, often the Autobots were sitting on the sidelines waiting before they could take action. Arcee could be patient when the situation called for it, but this wasn’t it. She did the one thing she could at the present and track the shuttle’s shaky descent through the atmosphere, keeping a close optics on changes in the shuttle’s status.

Once the shuttle landed, according to the Omega Base’s sensors, Arcee established an open commline on the emergency frequency for whenever Nova Storm emerged from the wreckage to update them on her situation.

“Approximate Ground bridge coordinates for the landing zone are preset, Prime” Arcee informed her leader. “Just waiting for the verification of Nova Storm’s Autobot I.D.”

[Optimus Prime]

While watching the numbers upon the monitor his expression remained unchanged at what he was seeing, even when the trajectory information shared that the shuttle had effectively hit the ground and was making its way to a halt. Optimus watched with that familiar air of neutrality, merely waiting for the shuttle to come to a rest so that they could put the proper coordinates into the Ground Bridge. There was no use in opening it up, only to have to hike inland to follow the shuttles gored path through the earth. Patience was all they could do.

The only thing to break this stoic observation was when Arcee punched her fist down onto the console controls, causing the Prime's thicker brow plates to drop down into a mild frown. He looked down at her in dismay. Not only were the controls valuable due to a lack of proper Cybertronian components, but they likely were outfitted with some human technology, thus making them fragile. But this was Arcee, she could be... enthusiastic... with expressing her frustration and he knew the moment was hopefully passed.

Once the shuttle came to a halt, and Arcee relayed the coordinates were ready, he spoke.

"Open the Ground Bridge. I wish to verify in person."

Nova had already confirmed that the ship was of Autobot origin, but it would be easy if it were a trap for a Decepticon to simply use said codes of an Autobot shuttle to act as confirmation of allegiance. They had already done a similar trick before with Makeshift, and he had very little tolerance to see that mishap happen again. Optimus wished to see things in person, and confirm transmitted codes directly from its source rather than through long range. It would make things far less hazed, and far clearer cut.

Walking through the Ground Bridge, Optimus' helm was craned up to try to look to the skies to see where this Autobot was, only to be met with an abundance of trees and vegetation that created a thick foliage canopy. With his height, he mostly found himself having to traverse through the brunt of the branches and twigs, not particularly pleased by the turn of events. It did not take him long however, to step out into the clearing created by the dragging shuttle, choosing to follow the smear of plant life in its wake. He looked back then at the skies, now that no trees could obscure him.

Undoubtedly the Cybertronian styled alt-mode of Nova would stand out plain as day, as contrails streaked behind it through the earths atmosphere. This said, he did not see such a thing, and frowned a bit before he peered down at the crashed shuttle that was not far away. Did... did the individual who was a flyer actually remain in the crashing shuttle? He cast a glance up at the sky again, before zeroing in upon the ship.

He approached at an at-ease gait, footfalls crunching down upon branches and stones which crackled and snapped.

[Deleted]

The surrounding jungle was a cacophony of life that had been so rudely awoken, easily drowning out the duo's approach. In the middle distance, amid twisted, broken, and burning trees, the freshly decended ship popped and pinged as its hull rapidly cooled. No signs of movement could be observed, aside from native lifeforms that scrambled across the scar that was left. Whether they were trying to escape from the situation, or take advantage of it to hunt, only they knew.

Suddenly, there was a sharp muffled *BGN*, followed by several more, all in a steady rhythm. It quickly became apparent that the sound came from the shuttle, as the banging increased in frequency before stopping. Suddenly, a hatch on the upper portion of the hull exploded out in a show of twisted metal, flying a good ways away, slamming into the jungle beyond, launching a cloud of birds into the predawn sky. "Lousy, no-good, slagging faulty alien designs. Who's processor glitched when they thought of that?" [Unintelligible Speech] A figure eased itself out from the now cleared hatchway and stood on the hull,a single sea-green optic slowly looking over the surrounding scene, left servo at the hip. "That's far enough, you two. Designations and affiliations." The femme, judging from the voice, turned almost casually in the direction of Arcee and Optimus, right arm pointed toward them.